How to provoke a civil war?

[Oedipus's Stepdad]

Does the party I'm trying to provoke has to have a fighting chance for them to consider turning against me? Do they have to be below a certain negative threshold (they're only -4 loyalty)? I've been trying to provoke a faction into civil war but only after I've disbanded all their big armies, and I've provoked them for like 50 times and it's always done nothing.

[K-9 [redneck]]

You can insult them, you can purge them, Steal the other party's wife. Or it never fails to piss people off have your family members go after his family. Have your agents attack in various ways. Most of these options appear when your the head dude. Yes I said "dude" cause Rome won't allow a Queen.

[Oedipus's Stepdad]

Originally posted by K-9 redneck:

You can insult them, you can purge them, Steal the other party's wife. Or it never fails to piss people off have your family members go after his family. Have your agents attack in various ways. Most of these options appear when your the head dude. Yes I said "dude" cause Rome won't allow a Queen.

Also do you know the difference between a civil war and a secession?

[Alwyn]

You can do it like this.

You:r party leader: Marcus, I am appointing you commander of the Ninth Legion!

Rival party leader: I'm honoured and surprised. You know that the nasty graffiti, the riots and the assassination attempts had nothing to do with me, right?

Your party leader: Of course, I absolutely believe that. Your mission is to destroy a big army of howling sword-wielding barbarians who are threatening a remote border town.

Rival party leader: Can I take along our republic's best army, as reinforcements?

Your party leader: No, I'll station them in the city closest to your family's estates - to, uh, protect them while you're away.

Rival party leader: Hmmm, the Ninth Legion seems to be made up of poorly trained spearmen.

Your party leader: It will be fine! The enemy are barbarians.

* A few turns later *

Messenger: The rival party leader was killed in battle! His family are outraged and are rebelling against you!

Your party leader: That is totally unexpected information!! Send our best army to destroy the rebellion.

If that isn't enough, you can look at the traits and see what will annoy the rival party. Do they hate Greeks? Make a trade treaty with every Greek faction you can find.

Originally posted by Oedipus's Stepdad:

]
Also do you know the difference between a civil war and a secession?

There are a couple of small differences. If it's a civil war, you get a cut-scene video with two lions facing off against each other at the start (and video with one lion at the end). If it's a civil war, you are protected from more rival parties breaking away until the civil war ends. If it's a secession, you're only protected for a limited number of terms.

You might be wondering what triggers a civil war as opposed to a secession. I used to think there was a rule - for example, if two (or more) rival parties break away it's a civil war, or if those who break away control more than a certain percentage of your regions it's a civil war. Now, I'm not so sure - I wonder if it's RNG.

[Aslan Ponto]

The minimum needed for a secession is -11 loyalty. Triggering it is very easy: just use all the political actions which cause loyalty drops such as promoting characters of your own party, embezzlement, entice, assasination, purge, insult, provoke, and as Alwyn points out, suicide campaigns for other family generals.

[oujosh29]

Use a mod